Functional socialism

CHAPTER IV

FUNCTION I THE FOUNDATION OF WEALTH

Iw considering the relation of status to function, we must remember a cardinal fact. All our “trades, crafts, mysteries and degrees”, in which each individual, by choice, chance, or compulsion finds his status, must be largely transformed, some developed, others abolished, as we move from financial to functional control. The reasons for this are obvious. Finance creates its own administrative and executive machinery, not for functional reasons, as it ought, but to pay dividends and maintain capital values as expressed in stocks and shares. This prime necessity in a capitalist system dominates production and distribution. So much so, indeed, that production is frequently restricted because there is no effective demand, even though there is a natural demand equal to full production. A shipload of fish is thrown into the sea because the demand is not effective; yet the natural demand for fish in the impoverished sections of our population remains unsatisfied. The functional attitude towards this particular problem would be to satisfy the natural demand. If a functionallyorganized authority, having control of its own credit,